What is Hearthstone?
Hearthstone is a free-to-play online Collectible Card Game (F2POCCG, which is a real genre) from Blizzard, based on the Warcraft universe. Choose a hero corresponding to one of the nine classes in Vanilla WoW and create a deck using their signature mechanics to fight other players in Casual or Ranked matchmaking. Earn Gold for every three wins and use the Gold to buy booster packs in order to expand your card pool, or use the Gold to purchase a ticket to the Arena where you construct your own deck on the fly using a random pool of all cards in the game. There is no offline play, but there are singleplayer adventure modes.

Download the client (Windows, Mac) on the main site. Note, you will also need a Blizzard account to log in to their launcher.

How to play Hearthstone?
I'm not going to go into that here, just play the tutorial to learn the game.

How to really play Hearthstone?
Read articles, apply critical thinking, watch good streamers.

Is there an in-game/player-driven economy?
No. There is no card trading or buying cards from other players and there probably won't be anytime in the foreseeable future. In its place is a crafting system. You can disenchant cards you do not want for arcane dust. You can then use that arcane dust to craft cards you do want.

Is this game Pay2Win?'
Of a sort. The thing you should know about Hearthstone is that if you're not going to pay money, plan on playing a lot (read: grinding) or becoming really good at Arena. The longer a player has played, the bigger their card pool will be. This means that an older, frequent player will always have better cards than a newer player. This is just an unavoidable part of collectible card games.

A paying player can save a lot of time by buying boosters, but it's not cheap and they're not guaranteed the best of the best cards, which is, in the end, what separates good decks from the best decks. Buying some boosters right off, however, will help you build a foundation to reliably win games in order to get Gold.

If you really hate not having good cards, then stick to Arena, which is a "level" playing field for a certain definition of "level".

What's the balance like?
This far post release, the Hearthstone team is committed to only affecting balance changes when they are "absolutely necessary".

If I like MTG/YGO/blah blah blah, will I like this?
Hearthstone is simplistic compared to games like MTG and YGO. The reason for this is because of Hearthstone's asynchronous turns, which means that you can't make any moves on your opponents turns. Hearthstone does have it's own particular brand of complexity, but it's really designed from the ground up to be a "pick up and play game". If you're looking for a hardcore card game experience like MTG, you won't find it here, but if you're looking for a streamlined card game experience you can jump in and out of whenever you want, then Hearthstone is right for you.

Le Reddit Guide - Probably the best place to start if you're totally new.Trump Teachings - A video series by one of the game's most notable streamers. This is essentially Hearthstone 101 and is mandatory viewing for any new player looking for a crash course in Hearthstone strategy.Liquid Hearth's Beginner Guides - Some of the info is outdated but the general ideas remain the same.Three Competing Resources Parts 1, 2, 3 - A series of articles on "resources" in the context of a card game, which goes well beyond just mana.

Official Forums - A veritable nest of QQ and cries for nerf, just like your WoW days!Team Liquid's Hearthstone Portal - Better place to discuss and learn about Hearthstone, frequently featuring competitive analysis and deck tech articles.IHearthU - Another good site for high level Hearthstone discourse.Hearthpwn and Managrind - Part of the Curse family of gaming sites, not only does it have an online database of cards and deck building tool, it is also home to ManaGrind, one of the premiere Hearthstone tournaments!Hearthstone Wiki - Obligatory game wiki.HearthArena - This website will help you out while drafting for arena. You enter the three cards you are presented for each pick and the tool will attempt to recommend you the best pick based on a general tier list and your current deck.Gutshot's Hearthstone Collection Spreadsheet - You can use this to keep track of your current card collection.

Official Blizzard Channels: YouTube, Twitch. Blizzard's Official YouTube/Twitch channels. Used for officially sanctioned tournaments and announcements.Amaz: YouTube, Twitch - Over the top reactions. Says "That's a card". Constructed and arena.Brian Kibler: YouTube, Twitch - High level, very professional streamer. Former MTG Champion. Doesn't usually play meta-decks. Constructed-only.Disguised Toast: YouTube, Twitch - Variety video content and fun streaming.Forsen: Twitch - Popular yet very salty stream. Politically Incorrect. Twitch at its best/worst depending on who you ask. Great if you're a high schooler who needs an angry father figure in their life. Hafu: Twitch - Very high level arena play.Kolento: YouTube, Twitch - Very high level stream.Kripparian: YouTube. Twitch - Very popular stream. Very chill. High-level arena play. Good YouTube content.Reynad: YouTube, Twitch - Pro player who nonetheless probably hates the game and his life. Some of his donators sexually identify as attack helicopters.Trump: YouTube, Twitch - Nice guy. Lots of good YouTube content. Constructed and arena.Funny and Lucky Moments (Trolden): YouTube - Crazy play montages.Epic Plays (Rage Orc): YouTube - More crazy play montages.Hearthstone Science: YouTube - Advanced Rules Experimentation and Discovery

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Constructed and played with Disco Lock, Quest Rogue, Chrono Mage, Taunt Control Warrior, and Elemental Shaman today. Most of them feel fresh and fun so far which is most important to me right now, and there are about a dozen other decks I want to try out which is exciting. As for the 4 I messed with today: Quest Rogue feels by far the most powerful in addition to just being the most fun. Chrono Mage feels like it has potential to be strong, but it's very clunky. Control warrior with the quest feels like a pretty standard control deck just with some taunts thrown in and I think it has potential. Elemental Shaman feels like it might be to this expansion what Dragon Priest was to MSoG, except it feels notably more consistent and more flexible with how it curves out. Disco Lock is love. Disco Lock is life. I've been a big fan of the archetype since Kara brought in Malchezaar's Imp and Silverware Golem, and I'm glad to see it getting more shine. The couple little additions round it out quite nicely, there's more discard synergy than before, and you can build it a few different ways, either as an aggro zoolock or a slightly slower variant with the quest. One thing I will say about the quest is I was surprised at how slowly I was completing it. I thought it would be one of the quicker ones to complete along with Rogue's and Hunter's, but it's a fair bit slower than that. Excited to see how this shapes up with some refining.

Also played against a bunch of N'Zoth Priests running the quests. It did not leave me hopeful about priest in this expansion. Every match I felt pretty safe to do whatever I felt like. This could very well just be rough day 1 decks, but if priest is gonna be decent this expansion - especially this type of priest deck - it's gonna take a lot more work.

You need to be pretty conservative about how you're running out your activators, especially the 1-mana ones you get from the low drop. Names are escaping me right now. That's if you're drawing relatively poorly. I still think that even with moderately poor draws you should have some means to activate your good elementals by time it gets to those turns.

Corporate Apologist

Ok, so far everything has been pulling its weight, but what card do you think would be best cut for more draw? And which draw do you think the deck should have? Coldlight is the obvious card to put in, but I still feel giving the enemy cards tends to hurt you more than help, due to your have overall lower card quality. I was thinking maybe sub in Far Sight, and actually take out Tidecaller.

Here is what I have been running again:

Maybe I'll just ride this deck as is for a good 50ish games, and see if anything comes to mind.

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Ok now I really believe Dragon Elemental Priest is BETTER than regular Dragon Priest before Ungoro

These elemental is clunkier than dragon package but the power creep is real, add to that DrakOP and Netherspite that got more busted with smaller discover pool, I believe Dragon Priest actually level up

Banned

Now that I have a little more time, here are my thoughts on quest hunter. You can go 1 of maybe 4 ways:

You build a sort of normal hunter deck (but then, why play the quest?) and hope that you last until turn 10-12 to complete the quest and start the raptors (very risky against aggro because you're hunter -- few heals/taunts, very risky against control because they're probably stronger than you).

You build a very 1-drop focused deck and rush them as quickly as possible for the quest. You finish the quest by turn 4-6 depending on your draws. You play the queen on turn 5-7 and have a 37-ish card deck. You now instantly lose because your hand is empty and your deck is full of 1 drops and raptors that don't combo.

You do the same as #2, but you wait to play the queen or you spread your 1-drops thinner. Now you're back in the situation of #1, where you try to stall until turn 12 or so to properly have a thinned deck that can combo raptors. Same deal, now you're super at risk of either aggro or control while you wait.

I haven't tried this because I can't afford it, but I assume you could try using Hemet. This requires you to draw him and survive until turn 7+ to play the queen, but then you would get all raptors. At that point you either win in 3 turns or someone plays a high HP taunt and you instantly lose.

Starving buzzard is SUPER expensive and at 2 HP will get killed by anything that breathes on it, anyone with a spell, or any minion with charge. I'm not meaning to be cynical, I just legitimately don't see a way to play the quest effectively. Hunter might be able to win some games without it though. Does anyone see anything I missed in my list above?

The one game I won tonight with the quest was because jeweled macaw got me King Mosh.

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Now that I have a little more time, here are my thoughts on quest hunter. You can go 1 of maybe 4 ways:

You build a sort of normal hunter deck (but then, why play the quest?) and hope that you last until turn 10-12 to complete the quest and start the raptors (very risky against aggro because you're hunter -- few heals/taunts, very risky against control because they're probably stronger than you).

You build a very 1-drop focused deck and rush them as quickly as possible for the quest. You finish the quest by turn 4-6 depending on your draws. You play the queen on turn 5-7 and have a 37-ish card deck. You now instantly lose because your hand is empty and your deck is full of 1 drops and raptors that don't combo.

You do the same as #2, but you wait to play the queen or you spread your 1-drops thinner. Now you're back in the situation of #1, where you try to stall until turn 12 or so to properly have a thinned deck that can combo raptors. Same deal, now you're super at risk of either aggro or control while you wait.

I haven't tried this because I can't afford it, but I assume you could try using Hemet. This requires you to draw him and survive until turn 7+ to play the queen, but then you would get all raptors. At that point you either win in 3 turns or someone plays a high HP taunt and you instantly lose.

Starving buzzard is SUPER expensive and at 2 HP will get killed by anything that breathes on it, anyone with a spell, or any minion with charge. I'm not meaning to be cynical, I just legitimately don't see a way to play the quest effectively. Hunter might be able to win some games without it though. Does anyone see anything I missed in my list above?

The one game I won tonight with the quest was because jeweled macaw got me King Mosh.

Member

You probably activated the quest too quickly and still had like 20 cards in the deck when you Raptored. That means 60% chance to not draw Raptors.

This is why the whole "all in 1 drop" strategy isn't reliable for the Hunter quest. Sure you can high roll the draws and chain the raptors (hell that shit been happening to me all day) but it may not work long term.

Member

I think the rogue quest is gonna underestimated. This is a deck that is going to have a very low curve. It's end game will be playing 5/5 novice engineers. The low curve will also help make use of the legendary minion they got.

I think this rogue quest can be built to be activated faster than any other quest we've seen so far. The minimum amount of cards required to activate it is just 5. The shaman one is close, if not faster assuming call in the finishers.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, that should be impossible (also Stampede only triggers off playing Beasts, not playing minions). If they play the spell on turn 1 because of coin, they only have 4 cards in hand on turn 2. If they then play the spell on turn 2, they only have 4 cards in hand on turn 3, and no more spells to play. They would have 6 cards on turn 5 only if they skipped playing anything at all for 2 rounds.

Let's say they do the spell on turn 2 instead using coin. That's 4 cards in hand for turn 3. Another spell + 2 cards and they have 4 cards for turn 4 and no more spells to play. This is even worse than the earlier case, with max of 5 cards on turn 5.

Let's say they play the spell on turn 3 without using coin. If they flooded the board from turn 1, they will start turn 3 with 3-4 cards, one of which is the spell. This means they start turn 4 with 3-4 cards, same situation as before.

Just remember that it only works on beasts and the player will always have their hand shrink because of the spell.

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Banned

You probably activated the quest too quickly and still had like 20 cards in the deck when you Raptored. That means 60% chance to not draw Raptors.

This is why the whole "all in 1 drop" strategy isn't reliable for the Hunter quest. Sure you can high roll the draws and chain the raptors (hell that shit been happening to me all day) but it may not work long term.

Cult Master has pretty much the same problem as Starving Buzzard -- 2 HP, has to be played on turrn 3-4, and by that time anything can breathe on it and prevent you from using it at all the next turn. If you're able to get a board to stick you can sacrifice your board to draw cards, but I think this is also a recipe for disaster as you try to get the board back at a disadvantage.

How would Stampede work for a draw engine? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.